Posted
by
Soulskill
on Saturday February 02, 2013 @03:50PM
from the another-one-bites-the-dust dept.

gannebraemorr writes "U-T San Diego reports that the city has become 'the latest in a cadre of California citiesturning their backs on red-light cameras — aloof intersection sentries that have prompted $490 tickets to be mailed to 20,000 motorists per year' there. 'Mayor Bob Filner announced his decision to take down the city's 21 cameras at a news conference set at the most prolific intersection for the tickets, North Harbor Drive and West Grape Street, near San Diego International Airport. A crew went to work immediately taking down "photo enforced" signs throughout the city. "Seems to me that such a program can only be justified if there are demonstrable facts that prove that they raise the safety awareness and decrease accidents in our city," Filner said of the cameras. "The data, in fact, does not really prove it."' I have to say I'm a bit surprised that my city is voluntarily shedding potentially $9.8M in revenue after objectively evaluating a program. I wonder how much a system would cost that could switch my light from green to red if it detected a vehicle approaching from a red-lit direction at dangerous speeds. Can you think of an other alternative uses for these cameras?"

" I wonder how much a system would cost that could switch my light from green to red if it detected a vehicle approaching from a red-lit direction at dangerous speeds. Can you think of an other alternative uses for these cameras?"

Hey, I will go for that and just keep my pedal to the metal...unless you do the same and then we are in deep too doo.

It would teach red light runners that they can, and will, get away with running red lights, because cross traffic will be stopped. I can't imagine the number of rear-ends this would cause for those having a green light switching to Red with no warning. I'd rather see it raise a crash-rated bollard to the high speed red-light runner. If someone is going to get hurt, it should be the scoff-law, not the guy with the green light.

I had a buddy who used to cut his headlights when he'd come to a blind Y at night in their rural county to see if anyone was coming on the other leg. Woe unto him when he ran into someone (literally) who did the same thing....

I flash my lights instead. This gives a VERY visible signal to anyone coming the other way and most people will clue in and return the signal. I also make sure that I take the corner slow enough that I can stop if someone does appear doing the speed limit. I still flash the lights in case the other guy is going faster than the speed limit.

As to the claim "The data, in fact, does not really prove it."', I find that hard to believe without some extraordinary evidence. I don't see any evidence in TFA, just some local politician making good on a populist pledge. As for tourists, I received a traffic fine from the UK after getting back home to Oz after a holiday. I paid it because I had fucked up and it was the RigthThingToDo(TM), not because of the risk of being turned back at Heathrow for outstanding fines next

Why do you need "extraordinary" evidence? Number of wrecks before the installation, and number after (plus percentages) should be enough.
Do you think the Major is giving up 10 million dollars, voluntarily, if there wasn't some hard evidence?

I'll note that there are probably some differences between the UK, Oz, and the US.

Here in the US, those traffic cameras are owned and maintained by private companies. Those companies contract with the cities to operate those cameras. Those companies, of course, share revenues with the cities.

While I haven't "studied" or "researched" those cameras, I've been aware of them, and I've listened to the talk about them for quite a long while. Everything I've heard indicates that they have zero impact on the rat

Let's just assume that a city has an annual "profit" of $100,000 from red light tickets.

They contract to have red light cameras put up. Gross profits increase by 100%. The camera company takes their 50% or 60%. So, the city is left with $140,000 to $150,000, IF they actually collect on all those tickets. Some people just don't pay them, as has been pointed out by other people in this conversation.

So, net increase in RED LIGHT TICKETS is up 40 or 50% - but as a percentage of overall traffic ticket revenu

In my city, red light cameras are also speeding cameras. City put them on all intersections that had lots of crashes. People do not speed through these intersections anymore. Number of crashes was reduced by over 50%. Number of serious crashes was reduced by 80%.

Red light cameras, shortening yellow light to "catch" more people, etc. are not good. Speed+red light cameras and normal yellow duration, then put them on all the troubled intersections and you'll see positive results.

Then again, the purpose of these cameras was not to make city money. The purpose was to reduced crashes which reduces costs for everyone. But then we have single auto insurance (gov't corp), so maybe the metrics are a little different. Seems to be working just fine though.

" I wonder how much a system would cost that could switch my light from green to red if it detected a vehicle approaching from a red-lit direction at dangerous speeds. Can you think of an other alternative uses for these cameras?"

Hey, I will go for that and just keep my pedal to the metal...unless you do the same and then we are in deep too doo.

He didn't say he'd switch the other persons light to green. All 4 directions would show red.

Not sure where the 9.8 Million figure came from, the actual story says they took in 1.2 Million in 2011. But after paying out to the camera company and the cost of for cops (who in today's whacky world generally make low 6 figures), the city only cleared 200,000$

My guess is that the only people that actually "make out" are the camera companies.

The real question is: Do red light cameras discourage running reds?

I don't know.

I've never got a "red light camera" ticket, because I don't run red lights, or speed through school zones.

Yes. In a lot of cities, people just kind of sneak through on a red if they are close enough to the car in front of them that is already going through the intersection (if there's less than 4 feet between you and the car in front of you, then it's ok). I confess I have done that when I know I will be stuck at a red light for a long time. If there's a camera, I'm extra careful. I don't think that's the kind of red-light-running that would cause accidents, though.

Yes. In a lot of cities, people just kind of sneak through on a red if they are close enough to the car in front of them that is already going through the intersection (if there's less than 4 feet between you and the car in front of you, then it's ok). I confess I have done that when I know I will be stuck at a red light for a long time. If there's a camera, I'm extra careful. I don't think that's the kind of red-light-running that would cause accidents, though.

You figured it out in your last sentence. What's the point? To discourage running reds, or to decrease crashes? Red light cameras don't decrease crashes. What happens when the guy 4 feet in front speeds up at the yellow, and you follow, then he slams the brakes because he changes his mind because of the camera? Oh yeah, more crashes. And the worst crashes are when someone is more than a second after the red. The tickets go out to people like you describe at 0.5s after the red. But it's those seconds late (drunk, asleep, reading the morning paper) that kill, and they don't see the red light, they won't see the camera.

Red light cameras don't decrease crashes. What happens when the guy 4 feet in front speeds up at the yellow, and you follow, then he slams the brakes because he changes his mind because of the camera? Oh yeah, more crashes.

Then you were driving incompetently. You shouldn't tail-gate. You should always leave enough room for you to stop if the guy in front does something strange like stamp on the brakes or swerve or something. Yes, they might be a lot to blame but you're still supposed to take care of yourself by anticipating the (immediate) future road conditions and driving so that you remain safe. Didn't you ever get taught that as part of showing you're fit to drive on the public highway?

And the worst crashes are when someone is more than a second after the red. The tickets go out to people like you describe at 0.5s after the red. But it's those seconds late (drunk, asleep, reading the morning paper) that kill, and they don't see the red light, they won't see the camera.

So, you're insisting that because cameras don't prevent all idiotic driving at an intersection, they're useless? I really don't agree, not at all. If you're behind the wheel, you should be fit to be driving safely, if not for yourself then for all your other fellow road users. That means being sober, alert and attentive. If you're not all three when driving, you're just a fucking jerkwad whose travel should be restricted to walking around the prison exercise yard.

Before you ask, I'm just as strict with myself about driving safely. Safely or not at all. No excuses. No third option. (Being a passenger when someone else is driving safely instead — bus, taxi, whatever — is a variant on "not at all".)

It's really a shame that nodoby reads for context anymore. Read the comment I was responding to. Note that my response is in relation to his 4-foot comment. I wasn't asserting I do it. And I'm not disagreeing that many drivers are incompetent. But the mechanisms for safety shouldn't exacerbate a known problem by causing crashes. Red light cameras cause crashes. People aren't addressing that little fact, and are instead quibbling about the fault of the crashes caused by the cameras, which is a non seq

And you should be driving defensively, instead of assuming everyone on the road is driving in the correct frame of mind.

Red light cameras work in theory. They cause more accidents in reality. My coworker wrote a research paper on red light cameras. As a police officer in a past life, he believed they would be very helpful. But after his research, he changed his mind. It concluded that their implementation results in more accidents at intersections, with an insignificant decrease in fatalities (read: fatalities at all intersections were trending down during the study period, including in cities that did not have red light cameras).

A better system is longer amber lights, or (my favorite) a flashing green that precedes the amber light. That's much better than screwing over your citizens, creating headaches for your city government, while the camera vendor profits from your lack of research.

So many people jumped on me when I commented on someone else's statement that people follow too closely and how that is exacerbated by red light cameras, yet nobody seems to care that two people must break the law to get in a t-bone crash. You may enter on a green only "when safe to do so". If someone hits you (or you hit them) then it obviously wasn't safe to enter.

Oh, and getting hit in the back is less safe than getting hit in the side. That's why a shift from t-bone crashes to rear-end ones doesn'

But do red light cameras prevent t-bone collisions? The most common cause of a t-bone collision is running a red light well after it turns red. This happens because the driver isn't paying attention, or is intentionally running the light, neither of which will be improved by red light cameras.

It may happen because a driver guns it as soon as it turns green, and hits a car that hasn't made it through the intersection. This would be improved by a longer amber light or flashing green. And this case is the

Also, if your front wheels are over the line before the light turns red, I'm pretty sure you're legally good to go in most places.

If your front wheels are over the line: you are already in the intersection.
Other cars in the conflicting direction are required to not proceed and enter the intersection
until you clear, even if their light turns green.

And you are required to clear out, or risk being ticketed for blocking the intersection.

The rules of the road state that you DO NOT enter an intersection if you cannot make it all the way through that intersection before light turns red then you should have never entered the intersection if the first place.

This entirely depends on state law, each state does it differently. If you are in a different state, better to stop on yellow lights until you know what the rules are.

Hmmm. Interesting problem though. Even if it's only a small percentage of intersections where it doesn't, how do you tell if it's an intersection where it does? And we're back around to needing pre-cognitive powers.

The roads are put together by committees who are sometimes excellent, but often don't really seem to know what they're doing, and sometimes don't even care and have ulterior motives. I'm a very careful driver. I plan ahead and think about other traffic, and actively calculate things like points o

Of course, municipality after municipality have been caught reducing the length of their yellow lights to drive up infractions. That's the problem: you really have no idea how long the yellow will last without precognitive powers. There are actually plenty of intersections where, unless you're speeding, if the light turns yellow after you've passed the point where you can safely brake and stop before the stop line, you won't cross the intersection before the light turns red.

The rule also has safety ramifications. If you are partially blocking part of an intersection which crosses a 4 lane highway, during a time when traffic is low on the highway: a vehicle on a conflicting path, may see the green light, and be approaching the intersection at the speed limit (E.g. 45, 50 Mph)

If you got a red light at 20% through the intersection, and cannot clear the intersection, then you may not be able to see t

1 data point.
I've received one, it was a weird intersection where the light was in the middle instead of at the far side of the intersection. It was a fresh yellow and I was turning right, I slowed down to look for a pedestrian then back to oncoming traffic from the left, it was clear and I went. I slowed down enough so that the light turned red before I started seriously turning. The light was out of view from my perspective and I took the right hand turn. A live cop would probably let it go after a license plate check came up clean. The ticket was not high enough to warrant me fighting it in court but high enough that it stung a little. Also the video when analyzed was clear from an outside perspective that a violation occurred. Now I pay really close attention to the lights and practically full stop on all yellows to the complete frustration of people behind me. Safer? I don't know but it does affect how I drive. I just hope I don't get rear ended.

Your last point is exactly what makes these, and speeding camera, dangerous and even deadly. When these started going up in my state, I noticed a marked increase in rear-endings at the lights with these. My state also was the first to put the speed cameras on the freeway. Even though people routinely would do 90+ on that freeway, you rarely saw crashed.

After the speed camera's went up on the freeway, I personally witnessed 5 accidents directly caused by the camera. It didn't make people drive slower on t

It may be hard to understand what's really going on here unless you live in CA, so let me try to explain.

These cameras were originally installed to raise tax revenue. When the city you live in gets busted by the state for using illegally short yellows in order to increase camera ticket revenue, it's very clear this has nothing at all to do with safety.

During the boom years, the police liked this idea - more revenue from the police dept meant more money to pay officers - what's not to like. But now most local governments in CA are either bankrupt (or like my county will be when Moody's changes their rules for rating Muni bonds), or for the first time in decades actually, finally starting to lay off employees in respose to the lack of revenue. In this new fincanial climate, the police hate these cameras! These cameras mean fewer officers are needed for the same ticket revenue, and that's just unacceptable. Since the cameras really aren't that great as a revenue source in the first place, they're being removed in city after city.

Sad as their reason for removal is, it's still great that they're gone. At least in my city, you had no right to challenge these tickets - sure, the constitution says something about a jury for criminal offenses and civil matters over $20, so, hey, we declare these tickets to be a new thing, neither criminal nor civil, so there! There's very little a California city won't do for money.

There was a pretty scathing news article a few months ago about Oakland regarding its policies on red light cameras.

Basically, the story is that the city installed red light cameras with the promise of ticket revenue and reduced accidents. But like most studies have shown, the types of accidents just changed, from T-bone collisions in the intersections to rear-end collisions. But the revenue was there.

So fast forward some time and there is suddenly a HUGE drop in red light violations (and subsequent traffic

So fast forward some time and there is suddenly a HUGE drop in red light violations (and subsequent traffic fines). What was discovered was that traffic engineers, without telling the police, had extended the yellow light by an additional second to reduce the number of red light violations.

I parse that last bit as "to improve safety." And it sounds like it worked.

The authorities out here on the left coast love to find new ways to take your money whether it be through taxes, fees, fines or just generally running up the cost of living with all their bullshit. The weather's nice, but even mostly sunny skies only goes so far once the government gets grabby enough with your money.

I suspect most cops would like to make "low six figures" but a quick Google found multiple sources which showed San Diego cops start at $51,000 and go up to $88,000 with a median of $71,000.This sounds reasonable for a dedicated public servant... not "whacky" at all.

I do agree that the camera companies are the ones making the big bucks. Typical privatizing public services so that the private sector makes lots of profit from the public.

The other side effect is that they never bring in the money that's expected, and so yellows get shortened to catch more people running reds. They're a good deal for the companies selling them, but don't do anything for safety.

Yes. If I know there is a camera, I will not risk adding a bit of speed at orange. I will stop. (No, that does not mean that I make a habit running red lights if there isn't.)

What they can do is add a lot more empty shells for camera's. Paint them bright orange, so everybody will see them. Now, at random, only put camera's in 1 out of 10 or out of 25 or whatever is a good number.Announce this to the public (not which shells are hot, but the number and even locati

It's $9.8M potential revenue, $1.2M to the city after state and county takes their cuts(and an unknown percentage of unpaid or successfully disputed fines), $200k to the general budget after paying camera specific expenses for the camera company, officers to process the tickets, etc...

Now consider that $200k up against the charging of the city's own citizens $9.8M. That's a 'efficiency ratio' of only 2%. Consider that taxes like property, sales, and income will have 'efficiency' levels of 90% or more, it's lousy. It's probably lousy compared to writing speeding tickets. That's $9.8M worth of pissing off your electorate vs $200k of income. I'll note that red light camera companies, when advertising to citizens, have 'safety' being something like 10% of the words. In presentations to city officials though, 'revenue' is present 5x as often as safety.

Traditionally speaking, fines have been okay because 'most' people don't get them, or felt they 'deserved' the ticket, etc... Perhaps people fixated upon blaming the officer*, not the city/county/state. Perhaps red light cameras, with their delayed notification and impersonal delivery changes perception. For whatever reason, people seem to be irked more by the cameras. As such, lawsuits and campaigns over them HAVE happened, often costing the operating city far more than what any profit that could be produced in a decade. Especially if they were stupid enough to sign a contract with severance penalties.

*I'm talking emotional reactions here, not logical.

Wrote this up on the idea of a 'significant' portion of people mitigating their fines -

Well, I actually doubt that; most areas have made red light cameras a 'civil' offense, not a criminal or even statutory one. So no day in court unless they actually sue the city. On the other hand, this limits what the city can do to non-payers - in some cases they can't even report the unpaid debt to the credit monitoring companies, prevent you from renewing your driver's license or car registration, etc...

Thus they aren't going to collect every time. Consider these various scenarios(not any particular order of likelihood):1. Stolen vehicles - I figure the criminal isn't going to care he's running a monitored red2. Financial deadbeats - because it's not an officer issuing a ticket; as I understand it the worst they can do is ruin your credit. If it's already so bad you can't get a loan, who cares?2. Drunk Drivers and such who don't have a license anyways(sort of like #2), but if said fines can actually prevent license renewal.3. Mis-identified vehicles - My dad works for a company with a number of work vehicles. He's gotten tickets mailed to him for violations in a city over 300 miles away. For a car, not a company truck/van. BTW, they're tracked by gps and don't normally go past around 50 miles.4. Right on red - Dad has also gotten a few of these - where the ticket was mailed for the clearly turning company vehicle5. Wrong target - The company vehicle is stopped or turning right(legally), with a DIFFERENT vehicle clearing running the red.6. Illegal Alien - a sort of mix between 'drunk drive' IE no license, and financial deadbeat.7. Stolen tags8. Moved away from the address on the registration; never updated(so didn't get the notification)9. Moved between committing the offense and getting the ticket; sometimes out of state/country10. Didn't understand the ticket, didn't have the money immediately*, forgot about the bill by the time the money could be scrapped together, something else happened, etc...

Roughly speaking, going by what Dad's said I wouldn't be surprised if the payment rate is under 50%.

*For a significant period of my life asking me to come up with nearly $500 out of the blue would require waiting a month for a couple paychecks while I frantically lived off of cheap food and scrambled to borrow money.

It wouldn't. People don't intend to run lights, and the biggest effect (here, not CA, I haven't seen the numbers for these ones) was an increase in rear-end crashes as people panic braked at yellows, and a decrease in traffic throughput as people slowed for intersections, causing more traffic (and traffic indirectly causes crashes, so that number wasn't determined). Longer yellows seems to have a greater effect on safety. The other option is moving to a system that works well elsewhere in the US. The re

The other option is moving to a system that works well elsewhere in the US. The red-yellow light. After a red, before a green, the yellow light comes on with the red, indicating a "fresh" green. You may go as if it's a green, but proceed with caution.

That's not how it works. I grew up with them, and hold a license in a country where they're in use.Red+amber is treated as a red light, and you get the same fine as for going on a red light.

The purpose of it is to make all the cars waiting prepare[*] for the green light, so they can all start rolling when it turns green. Yes, you read me right, all of the cars, not just the first one. Here in the US, one car slowly starts rolling, then the next one, then the next one. The lights have to stay green a lot longer as a result, which in turn blocks people going the other way, which in turn leads to idiots blocking the intersection or running yellow lights because they don't want to have to wait for three minutes for the next light.

[*]: Like clutch, gear, or handbrake. All foreign concepts to the majority of US drivers, alas. But even with three-on-the-tree, you can rev up slightly with one foot on the gas and one on the brakes (another foreign concept), or just mentally prepare to drive in a second, even if you're not the first car.

Yes, red+amber is a great idea. But not for the reason you think. And it wouldn't work here in the US, because it requires alert and active drivers, not slugs.

In the UK all lights do either Red + Amber or Flashing Amber after Red. Red + Amber means get ready to move. Flashing Amber means go if it is safe (same as green, except there is a higher chance that it won't be safe to go).

You can get ticketed for being too slow on a green in some countries, especially where there's red+amber to prepare you. "Obstructing traffic". But not after a second, it's more likely if you finish applying lipstick or changing CDs.

Near where I work, there's a light that's 2 minutes green in one direction, and 30 seconds in the other. Back in Europe, you would easily get 10-15 cars through in those 30 seconds, but here, you typically get 3-5, with the last car or two likely running a yellow light. Part of it is drivers not preparing for the green light, and part of it is waiting for the car in front to move before you even start moving yourself, because you've left yourself no room to start moving yet brake if the car in front is an idiot who doesn't move.I won't say that American drivers are the worst in the world (I've been to Cairo), but they're certainly the most sedate.

Closer to impossible to contest. I received a RL ticket for a car in my name, but I was not the driver. Also the visor was down and you could not completely make out the driver, it was obvious it was my girlfriend, and not myself. After attempting to contest that, the judge told me it was my car, and therefor I was liable for any actions taken in it. Found me guilty of running a red light(while I was at work, with proof I was there), I had to take a safety class(in which in instructor was incredibly demeaning, and knew if you spoke up, he could throw you out, and you lost your license for failing to complete the class), and took a few points hit to my DL..

Now, I could have likely appealed this, and won in a county court vs the city court I was found guilty in; who has time to miss another day of work, and a possible double or triple in court fees because you just wouldn't shut up and pay your fine?

That would mess a lot of things up. Contrary to popular belief most civil engineers aren't dumb, they've done fluid modeling and simulations (you know, science) to determine how long each light needs to be red and at what intervals. If you accelerate one part of the system you might disrupt the flow of traffic miles down the road. In my area some traffic lights are disabled past 7pm to improve traffic flow at non peak hours because the lighter traffic past 7 allows some optimizations.

Light cycles are very long here, regardless of the time of day. If you miss that green, you'll be sitting there for 2 or 3 minutes, even if you are the only car on the road. (Unless you just drive through the red.)

There are loops in the road to detect cars from less travelled roads, and they'll trigger a change in the light. There are also buttons to detect pedestrians, but they don't advance the cycle, they just give a walk signal. Eventually. The pe

The problem is not the civil engineers (at least probably not). It is probably the fact that the political appointees over ruled the traffic experts for some political reason. What makes this especially difficult is that you can't just fix it by making it so the political appointees can't over rule the subject matter "experts" because than you have no way to hold those subject matter "experts" accountable. Either the political appointees (the people who answer to the people who answer to the voters) can fire the subject matter experts (and if they can do that, they make it be known that if the subject matter experts don't do it their way they will be fired) or the subject matter experts are not accountable to anybody.

No, they are dumb. Lights are right for 10 seconds of every day. They don't work for most of the day. They set the timing of the lights based on the "main" (arbitrarily assigned, most of the time) and adjust the rest to minimize pain points, *not* to maximize throughput. If you time all the lights to 25 mph in a 35 or 45 mph zone, then everyone goes a slow, easy, 25 mph, no jams, no slowdowns (25 is slow enough that if someone slows to turn, the others go to 35 to make up the difference). If they time

It's not like a fluid, but the dynamics of traffic flow are modeled. But it's a relatively new science and has not been widely applied. For many decades, traffic light controls were programmed heuristically, with some being very bad and some systems being quite good. 30 years ago, the traffic controls in Denver along major roads was excellent, without causing big interruptions on the minor streets. That was all done based on timers and heuristics because there were no good mathematical models of traffic

Lights would be far more efficient if they would simply put the detectors further from the lights so they determine how many cars are approaching from all directions. Currently the detectors are right next to the lights. All over my town (SoCal) I watch vehicles traveling in waves, and each wave gets a red light because a single vehicle beat the wave to the detector. It appears to be the most inefficient way to allow cross traffic for a modern society wi

You snark, but there is a lot of good reasons to support toll roads (tiered pricing). Toll roads actually reduce congestion by getting people who value time more than money to pay up, which frees up the city road for everyone else. Price discrimination may suck for ISPs but it's known to be effective, albeit unpopular, on highways.

wonder how much a system would cost that could switch my light from green to red if it detected a vehicle approaching from a red-lit direction at dangerous speeds. Can you think of an other alternative uses for these cameras?"

Such a proposed system would quicly train motorists to rush red lights even more than they already do, because they could supposedly depend on the system stopping motorists coming the other way. Problem is, if a red light isn't stopping a guy running a red light in one diection, what's going to stop a like minded driver in the other direction?

In 25 years of watching these systems try to replace traffic cops, I've yet to read any independent data on whether there's a net increase in safety in using speed and red-light cameras.

There are those who are pro-camera, who usually turn out to be affiliated with the makers of these systems, and those who are against, usually the expert witness traffic engineers who testify against municipalities in cases of those involved in rear-end accidents with the people who stopped for a changing light.

There are those who are pro-camera, who usually turn out to be affiliated with the makers of these systems, and those who are against, usually the expert witness traffic engineers who testify against municipalities in cases of those involved in rear-end accidents with the people who stopped for a changing light.

Here in Aus, it is always the fault of the rear car. It doesn't matter if the car in front emergency braked for a butterfly, if you hit it, it's your fault.If the cops get called (mandatory if there are any injuries) there is a pretty good chance you'll end up with a dangerous driving charge as well as full liability for any damage.

Running a red light is indicative of not having enough time to notice that the light is changing. By extending the amount of time the yellow signal is on, the more likely a speeder will notice the light is changing.

Running red lights isn't actually a problem. The traffic light goes yellow and then it goes red. Depending on how drivers in your part of the world behave, people will pass the lights up to x seconds after the light goes yellow. That number x is different in different places, but it can be measured.

What's dangerous is not running a red light, what's dangerous is passing the light when cars from the other direction are already entering the crossing. So what matters is not the time between yellow and red,

What's dangerous is not running a red light, what's dangerous is passing the light when cars from the other direction are already entering the crossing. So what matters is not the time between yellow and red, what matters is the time between yellow on my side and green on the other side.

Plus the phasing for other directions might be different (e.g., a dedicated cross-traffic turn phase) or there might be a pedestrian-exclusive phase. (Some jurisdictions have them, others don't.) All you really know when you see a red light is that you're not supposed to be entering the junction at that point. That's even true if it is a junction you know well; a highway engineer might've just altered the sequence for all you know for sure. Cars are dangerous (if very convenient) and so should be driven car

Running a red light is indicative of not having enough time to notice that the light is changing. By extending the amount of time the yellow signal is on, the more likely a speeder will notice the light is changing.

Problem #1: Yellow light lengths are actually determined by the posted speed. They are supposed to be calibrated to allow for this. In fact, this is exactly how cities got busted with this program, by manipulating the yellow light times to be shorter, thus increasing revenue, but technically making the roads less safe than they were before (which obviously they didn't care about).

Problem #2: The assumption that a speeder will not put their foot through the floor if yellow light times are increased becaus

Here in Calgary, the cameras have two purposes. The first is a normal red light camera, the second is for speed on green. Basically, it's just like multinova except it's right at the intersections. So if you speed through the green light you will get the ticket.

I wish we could get rid of the red light piece of it, but keep the speed camera. I figure that stopping people from speeding through intersections is a lot more useful than catching speeders along long stretches of road where there wasn't going to

Where can I find a copy of that data? Without exception, the "studies" I've seen condemning red light cameras have been woefully biased and flawed. Even then, they often conclude that red light cameras "only" trade side impacts for rear impacts, which is actually very much a net win for safety, as the latter cause fewer and less-severe human injuries.

Many of the studies contain irritating circular references back to a handful of cases where suspect yellow timing was supposedly employed to increa

It depends. If you habitually run a red light at 2 AM every other morning because there's never any traffic then, and you can see the headlights of any vehicle coming, the only people's lives you put at risk are those who drive without headlights in the middle of the night.

I think that if we are to start fining people more, let's start with:

- Tailgaters. Including those who hit you from behind if you stop on a yellow light.- People blocking intersections.- Doubly so for people who make a right turn on red

You know, Houston did this long ago, so I am not sure how it is news, since really if conservative Houston can deal without them, anyone can.

The issue for many people is not really money. Yes, criminals can and should pay a larger percentage of the taxes. However, there are two other factors. First is the contract. It seems to many that due to the costs, these camera companies are bounty hunters and therefore the revenue stream to the city is not what is expected. Second is the idea of the surveillanc

Law enforcement should not be a profit centre. If you give people a financial incentive to find people guilty, then they will focus on trying to find people guilty rather than to stop the harm that the law was supposed to prevent.

Yeah. You do. First Amendment guarantees you the freedom of association. Freedom of association requires the freedom to travel. And traveling, in many parts of the United States, means the freedom to drive.

That's why you need to be licensed to do it.

Changes nothing. Voting is a right, but comes with certain requirements - that you be a citizen, that you be at least 18 years old, and not be a felon. Gun ownership is a right, but you have to get a restr

And to go Logan's Run, retire anyone over 30 who still has the nerve to drive without perfect reflexes and vision. Also, eliminate people who drive while distracted by kids, they're a menace.

Unless you're capturing video all the time, you can't get a camera to distinguish between tailgating and just being close to a car because someone hit the brakes unexpectedly. The only way to be sure someone has been driving too close to other cars is a history of them rear-ending people.

1. He was driving in his wife's car and was perhaps a little over the limit, and the machine flagged him.
2. His wife received the ticket in the mail.
3. Under local law, since she owned the car, but was not the one in the photo, it falls on her to identify the driver of the car at the time, so that he may be cited.
4. This, of course, meant that the lawyer's wife was being compelled to testify against her husband, which is illegal.
5. T